


Respite

by Airmid



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 01:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10150460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airmid/pseuds/Airmid
Summary: Dean should have known that if one of the dicks had a way to pollute dreams then they all had it. It just wasn't what he was expecting.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Nebulous Season 11, after The Vessel where they learn that Lucifer is possessing Castiel.

* * *

 

 

Nothing was better than sitting on baby with a cold beer on a late summer afternoon. Her sharp lines pushed into the back of his legs; all bright steel and smooth black and he wished he didn't have to get moving soon. This was the kind of place he could be happy for pretty much forever. 

“Hello Dean.” Dad was standing off to the side with his hands shoved into his pockets and looking younger than he had any right to be. Illusions crumpled, draining into the ground with his now forgotten beer. 

“Michael?” A slight nod. “What the hell?” 

“Did you think that only my brother had this trick up his sleeve?” the archangel asked, eyes bright, not belonging to that flesh. He wanted to scream at the prick to get out, even if wasn't really dad but the slow steps towards him made the cries stick and strangle him. Everything was rooted and waiting and he didn't know if it was him being weak or some kind of fucked up angel mojo. “Interesting idea of peace.” 

“What the hell do you want?” He applauded himself on sounding threatening through his half strained voice. 

“Let's call it curiosity shall we?” A hand was raising his chin up, making him look when all he wanted was for this thing to be gone. That this could actually be some sort of peace. “I'm surprised to see Sam gave in so willingly.” 

“He didn't,” because there was only one thing this could be about right now and that was the problem of the Cage being at half vacancy currently. “He told Luci to go fly a kite.” 

“Well, my dear deranged brother isn't in you so where, oh where did he go?” A head tilt, a mocking tone that could never pass for dad's. “So who said it? Oh, was it that little pet you keep, my wayward little brother? Haven't you found that he is more trouble than his upkeep, at least from the stories I hear.” 

He couldn't keep his jaw from clenching, from hating that smug smirk staring back at him a bit closer now. “How about you go flitting back to the great below?” 

“Mm, no not quite yet but I do admire your vigor.” 

“I won't say it, so I don't know what you want.” 

“I told you curiosity,” came the low response and there was something smothering in the air. “I'm curious as to how far you've gone letting them dig in and shred you.” 

“What? I don't -” 

“Oh Dean please, remember who you're addressing,” the angel said, fingers rigid as though carving channels against his chin. “Don't even try to pretend that if Sam asked you to that you wouldn't spread your legs for him.” 

“You sick fuck,” he growled. “Don't you dare -” 

“Your daddy too.” 

“Fucking shut your trap!” 

“You know how I know?” Michael's voice was smooth as the engine he was pressed up against and he still can't move, can't get distance. “I would have done the same. Now Dean,” the angel said dragging a hand across his hip, “don't be so ashamed.” 

“You know how messed up that is right?” The hand skirted down his chin and coiled loosely around his neck and he willed himself not to swallow. “I mean you aren't anywhere near sane but even you can see how screwed up that is.” 

“It doesn't matter how many times they betray you, leave you behind until you agree to be their entourage again, does it? Rip you up over and over until you can barely find enough left to stitch something close to you back together. Don't tell me you haven't had those thoughts where you haven't looked at your brother and thought how much easier it would have been if he just died.” 

“No,” he managed, the weight of those hands burning through him, into him. 

“But you can't do it yourself and you can't look away and they keep chipping away because you can't stop loving them. It's not in you or me either to ever just stop.” 

“Please.” He managed to finally close his eyes. 

“At least they have some capacity to love you back,” Michael said, his face so close and it was dad, he made himself remember that this thing had worn his father and he should be livid. Swinging with his fists and kicking, trying to get away and not this pool of spineless ooze. “At least it's there, even a little. Me? Well I was created to love, not to be loved.” 

Just in time he managed to swallow words of empathy because he can't be doing that. That this thing who had once wanted the end of the world could feel a damn fool thing. 

“I was happy once, just loving them. My Father, my beautiful baby brother who was given to me brighter than the light of all creation. Them, only them. Of course I loved the others but never as much as them.” 

Michael's face was so close that he could feel the push of every word against him and he can't push back. _Get away,_ his mind shouted. _You need to wake up now._  

“It was enough for me, but my love wasn't enough for them. I've tried, Dean. Oh I've tried to burn it to ashes, to rip it out and make myself hollow and unending but even in the end hell strains under the weight of trying to flick it out little by little. Just. Like. You.” 

“That's not true,” he hissed back, that hand on his hip taunt and strained. Some of it was and this thing knew it. 

“Tell me child, since you are reckless. Did you die with the Mark? And don't deny having it, I know better.” 

“What's it to you?” he snapped, feeling the fingers on his neck like a heat threatening to burn all he was to cinders 

“Tell me what you felt.” He shook his head and he swore the puff of air on him was a laugh. “Dean, it's just us. I already know but I want to hear you say it. Don't make me force it from you.” 

Those nails sharp against thin skin meaning he could feel pain in this fucked up nightmare no matter how temporary. 

If an angel killed him like this did he die? 

“Free.” He hated himself more somehow as the pressure released slightly from his neck. 

“Oh love, if only you had said yes to me. We could have been creation's most beautiful devastation together.” 

“Don't suppose you’re satisfied and skip out now?” He didn't even know where he found the courage to try to be snide, to try for that shit eating grin even with his eyes screwed shut still. A shift from the angel and he knew that the thing was impossibly closer, face almost pressed against his. 

“Little Sammy didn't like your new found freedom even if you left the world alone, did he?” 

“Just get away from me.” 

“Darling little Sammy went against you, changed you, wouldn't give you what you needed. He wouldn't give his life for you even after your bartered yours into the hands of the damned for him.” 

His body went rigid, the feel of the scythe in his hands. He knew, deep down he knew it wasn't him entirely that had chosen to swing and hit Death who should have friggin' known better. But Sam had done that, hadn't just realized the cost of the world, the cost of everything and that he'd go to heaven. Yeah an eternity worth of greatest hits but he would have died a thousand times to give Sam something like that over all the other possible alternatives. Including the one currently stalking earth and had obliterated fuck knew how many by this point. Vaporized to nothing, even monsters got better than that hand.  

“There is only one true difference between us Dean Winchester.” 

“You say this like I care.” 

“I refuse to keep on their path once I knew their truth. You though, oh beautiful, you keep marching to save them all.” That mouth was way to close to his own full of fire that was probably more of hell than of heaven anymore. 

“How are you even here?” because all he could think to do was change this conversation, get it away from whatever was about to happen. He didn't think he would stop it if he could, filled with want to be this raw. 

“The Cage is damaged beyond repair and though I am trapped in here still I can reach out. And it is easy to reach the one I love.” That mouth pressed against his and made himself not like it, not want something that shouldn't be here, shouldn't even be so goddamn natural. Then that pressure, that absolute smothering bone crushing weight was gone and he opened his eyes, surprised the angel was still there beside him. “I came to see you one last time, to say goodbye.” 

“I – I don't get you man.” 

“There is no one left to let me out. Lucifer fears me, fears what I might do and Father, well we both know how much he cares for me.” 

“So Lucifer values his own skin over everything else. That's not new.” Dean shrugged his shoulders ignoring the last part of Michael's statement because he worried some days. 

“Well that but he fears that I will join with Amara and destroy,” and there was a real laugh from the angel as though it was the funniest joke in the world. “You see though, hell has started to burn away my love for them. I simply don't care enough about them anymore to want to destroy them. And that is something I doubt any of them will ever get.” 

“So you aren't even going to try to help us at all?” Damn he shouldn't sound so affronted, like it was a personal slight against him and tried to look anywhere that wasn't the archangel studying him. Dusty leaves scattered beneath the trees could be surprisingly interesting. 

“What would you have me do? We have both held this bleeding, hemorrhaging mass of a mess they left together for far too long. I trust you will find a way to push it back to non-destruction for a little while longer. Not that they'll care or thank you in the end but as I said before, you are the one who can still march.” 

“So this mind fuck was completely pointless then, is that it?” 

“To give you something.” 

“What, a complex?” and he managed to shift back to cocky again, that grin on his face shattering as he felt the angel touch his cheek. “Got to tell you Mikey, kind of got that in spades. So whatever you were hoping for -” 

“I wanted you to have what I didn't have,” Michael said, his voice suddenly grave and Dean managed an eye roll. “I wanted you to know that someone sees you.” 

A spark and then a thousand fires spread across his nerves. All he could was bask in it all as it coursed and twisted in his veins, replacing his blood with golden heat bright and glorious. He would melt for this, die for it. That cold echo that had beat and threatened to consume him for so long was wiped away in its flow, a flash and nothing felt more whole then it did in that moment. 

He would do anything to say anything to hold it close for the rest of his Godforsaken life. He couldn't help himself as his hand reached out. 

Loose fabric of the shirt slipped away through his fingertips as the angel pulled away from him, aching in those inhumane eyes as Michael turned back towards the road. Everything in him wanted to call out that he could come back, they could find a way to fucking fix this whole mess. That he would say it, that part of him had longed to say that one word for so long. Longer than he had ever known what it would mean or what it would give him. 

Maybe he should have. Oh Christ, they probably would have destroyed the world together but that deep loss was suffocating him all over again as he watched what was once and never was his father walk down the road and he's paralyzed. 

“Dean?” 

Everything spasmed and it was only a stroke of dumb luck that he didn't fall out of the chair he had apparently fallen asleep in. Sam was there, looking worried. Worried enough that his forehead was pressed into its signature row of furrows deep enough to inspire planting and Dean managed not to laugh at that image. 

“S'kay Sammy,” he murmured voice still full of sleep as he rubbed his face. “Just a really weird dream.” 

“Uh huh.” Sam rolled his eyes and Dean knew his brother was trying not to picture the strippers and Jello he always thought Dean dreamed about. He wished the yeti would give him more credit. “Well I got us some food if you're hungry.” 

Dean just nodded and watched his little brother trudge back to towards the kitchen. He tried not to think how more hopeless it became at each hour passed, what a bitter pill the whole God existing was since he was also MIA. As he pushed himself up he could still feel where those fingers pressed into him like a brand and he couldn't lose himself to them now. He couldn't concentrate on how much he wanted to feel them again so he breathed out and went to go see what take out horror Sammy had found for dinner this time.


End file.
